As Promised

So this time last year I was seriously thinking that I would read all of Dickens in the year 2010. A friend even offered to read them with me and we got going pretty good I thought. But I soon realized that I wanted to read/research Dickens more than I wanted to do school work and that there really wasn't enough time for both. I don't like to admit it, but Dickens isn't something I can read for fun before bed. I need a less wordy companion for that, and when school is on I don't have time for much other reading. Lesson learned.

Sort of.

(I love that the program for this blog doesn't have grammar editing, I hate being told how many times I write a fragment! grrrr.)

This semester I will have no music classes. No piano lessons. I will be in choir once a week and attending recitals and convo's, but not studying music (Dr. Webb would not agree, choir is studying music...and he's right, but still...). This past semester I had 20th century music literature. It was a great class. We were required to do a listening log. I think mine was abysmal, but that is beside the point. I had done this in one other music lit class with the same professor and enjoyed it, I tried, that first time, to use it to listen to music I would not normally listen to. I listen to a variety of classical music for pleasure and must admit to a certain amount of complacency. Don't get me wrong, I do have a tendency to analyse what I'm listening to more often than not, even the pop stuff I enjoy, but when listening to instrumental music, or art music (I prefer this term), I have a definite bias. Piano, piano, piano, and yes, some more piano. Symphonies and concertos are in there too, but mostly solo piano music, and even the non keyboard art music CD's I own are composers most famous for their piano music.

This is not necessarily a bad thing, if I were interested in being some sort of piano repertoire expert, or wanted to only ever be a casual listener. However, I have higher aspirations, as always. So, rather than set myself up for shame thinking I'll stick with academic extra curricular activity for a year, I'm just going to try for a semester. I want to keep my finger in it so to speak. I have no idea what the future holds. Applications have been submitted, and fingers are crossed, but who knows? I may graduate this spring and need to find a job at Price Cutter. I may be accepted to grad school in another state, I may stay at MSU. Any of those things will be fine. But one thing I do know is that I want to continue to study music my whole life. So I want to develop a habit.

To that end I am going to start a listening log right here. Once a week, usually on Sunday morning, as that was the time I sent aside this past semester to work on grad app stuff and it didn't cut into other studies much, I will post the piece of music and what I find out about it. I'll do what I can to keep it on the level, meaning I will not be likely to ever cite Wikipedia. Rather, I will use the resources I've learned about in class and have at my disposal as a student. I'm not going to set up any kind of chronology or plan. In fact, if you are still reading this and would like to know more about a piece of music, any music, comment and let me know what it is, I might use that for an entry.

When I can I will include a link to the music, or perhaps find a way to upload mp3's from my computer.

That will be all for now.